July 23, 2021
The Tongan government has approved the Tonga Ocean Management Plan, a milestone in the work to ensure sustainable management of the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
May 28, 2021
Global Fishing Watch has launched an innovative technology portal to help strengthen management of marine protected areas (MPAs) and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs).
April 1, 2021
Tongan officials expect to take the country’s Ocean Plan to cabinet this year after the initial plan was postponed. Having had nation-wide consultations in 2018 and 2019, the Tonga Ocean 7 team had hoped to finalise the plan in 2020.
February 5, 2021
The Niue Ocean Wide (NOW) project, a public-private partnership between the Niue Government and NGO Tofia Niue has completed its initial five-year project which started in 2015...Tofia Niue’s president Coral Pasisi thanked everyone who has contributed to the Niue Ocean Wide project over the past
September 18, 2020
Thirty national experts in the Solomon Islands gathered for a two- day workshop to review the first-ever zero-draft marine spatial plan for the Solomon Islands.
Designing Marine Spatial Planning Legislation for Implementation: A Guide for Legal Drafters May 2020
The Guide contains information about essential components and sub-components of marine spatial planning legislation, describing each and highlighting its role and significance. The Guide also provides examples of textual provisions from existing marine spatial planning laws and regulations, along with sample provisions prepared by the authors, to illustrate how legislative or regulatory language can address each component. Appendix A contains a list of marine spatial planning laws to which the legal drafter can refer.
January 17, 2020
There is no doubt that the Pacific’s ocean needs to be better managed so that respective countries in the region can gain the maximum benefits. This is something the Government of Tonga believes should be done urgently...Tonga plans to implement the Ocean Plan by the end of this year.
Marine zoning revisited: How decades of zoning the Great Barrier Reef has evolved as an effective spatial planning approach for marine ecosystem‐based management
For more than 40 years, marine zoning has played a key role while evolving as part of the adaptive management of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Marine Park.
November 22, 2019
A recent publication “Marine zoning revisiting: How decades of zoning the Great Barrier Reef has evolved an effective spatial planning approach for marine ecosystem-based management” published in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems distills important lessons from Australia’s ev
November 21, 2019
The main objective of the training was to build the capacities of GOS and Government Corporations to increase their access to, and their skills in spatial data management, storage and use of GIS in natural resource planning.The training was organised by the Section of National Mapping under the T